MOBILE, Alabama -- Federal firearms prosecutions, on a steady decline nationwide in recent times, hit a decade-long low in January. Not in Mobile, though, where U.S. prosecutors brought more guns cases in 6 months than they did the entire previous fiscal year.

For 4 of those months, the judicial district that includes 13 southwest Alabama counties had the nation’s highest per capita rate of firearms prosecutions.

To prosecutors and law enforcement leaders, the data shows that federal-local cooperation is taking dangerous criminals off the streets. To some defense lawyers, it demonstrates an overreach by a justice system that’s trying to burnish its reputation.

U.S. Attorney Kenyen Brown said, “I think it sends a clear message: If you are a felon and you have a gun, law enforcement will investigate you and the U.S. Attorney’s Office will prosecute you.”

The national data on firearms cases is available through the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. Using that data, Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, concluded that the 484 gun cases filed in January were the least for any month since George W. Bush took office as president in January 2001.

The annual numbers are grouped in federal fiscal years, which begin each Oct. 1.

Before fiscal 2011, federal gun prosecutions were also declining in Mobile, falling to 65 in 2010. A jump began in October, however, and by the end of March, the case number had reached 68.

Many such cases, according to Carlos Williams, the federal defender in Mobile, start with arrests by local police who discover that an armed suspect had a criminal record prohibiting possession of firearms.

Turning such arrests into federal cases is relatively simple, he said.

“Who knows? Those are easy ways to keep their numbers up,” Williams said.

TRAC records show that gun offenders in Mobile routinely receive shorter sentences than the national average, which could bolster arguments that prosecutors are pursuing less-serious cases. In 2008, for example, the median sentence for local gun offenders was 30½ months, only about half the national average.

Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran made the point that his deputies are not simply chasing after people with decades-old convictions who have hunting rifles at home.

Cochran: Feds right to target repeat gun criminals

He said he eagerly promotes federal efforts to bring gun cases against repeat criminals.

Mike Messinger, the resident agent in charge of the Mobile office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said that the gun caseload reflects good cooperation among police agencies and a willingness of federal prosecutors to shoulder such work.

Cochran’s Operation THUG program, for example, offers rewards for tips about convicted felons who have guns. The sheriff said he has referred 12 to 14 gun cases to the ATF since launching the program in November.

Messinger praised the support that the U.S. Attorney’s Office gives to the ATF.

Records kept by TRAC show that the percentage of firearms cases accepted by federal prosecutors in Mobile consistently is among the highest in the country. In 2008, for example, the U.S. Attorney’s Office refused only 12.2 percent of such cases presented by police agencies.

“Some districts, in terms of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, are more aggressive on gun prosecutions,” Messinger said. “This has been one of the most aggressive districts I’ve ever seen. ... They seem to be more willing to prosecute cases we bring to them.”